Saturday, October 31, 2009

America has a fatal weakness in spite of her strength, and this weakness is spreading. It can actually lead to her downfall. From its inception, America has not treated its citizenry well. Even while drafting the Declaration of Independence, the foundational document that guarantees every person the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it enslaved millions of blacks - defining them as property rather than persons. Women were just a notch above the slave, considered property as well, civilly dead (i.e. no right to own property or vote) – totally subjected to the whims of her father or husband. There were laws in the land that actually restricted women’s rights such as the Comstock Laws that forbade, among other things, the making and selling of contraceptive devices. Much of the twentieth century was devoted to combating these inequities, with blacks and women sometimes joining together to reshape the American landscape with regard to civil rights.

These conditions made it easy for women like Margaret Sanger, to sell birth control and abortion as a woman’s rights issue. It was not unreasonable to think that a woman should have the ability to decide when and where she would bear children. It was not unreasonable to think that blacks should have the right to live in America without restrictions based on their race. Certainly, it was not unreasonable to fight to ensure that no one would "sit on the womb" of black women, as someone recently said to me. After all, black women faced double the inequities, based on their race and gender. Encouraging the two to fight together for their rights could not be viewed as anything less than an effort to ensure women a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A simple trek back in time however, reveals that Sanger’s motivation for pursuing her birth control agenda had a more insidious meaning than that of guaranteeing a woman’s right in the fight for equality. Slavery had ended, but the question of what to do with the 4 million plus slaves that were now free had not been resolved. Sanger, an ardent eugenicist, joined hundreds of other American elite in crafting a “Negro Project” in answer to that question. Designed to control the birth rate of those America “didn’t want too many of” as Justice Ginsburg recently revealed, Sanger and her organization Planned Parenthood, waged a war against the births of blacks by promoting birth control, abortion and sterilization in the areas where most blacks reside.

Enlisting the likes of W.E.B. Dubois, Adam Clayton Powell, Jesse Jackson and others to spread her “equal rights” message, Planned Parenthood succeeded in persuading them that a woman’s right to prevent pregnancy or end pregnancy by abortion was a right to be fought for like the right for equality blacks have fought for so long. She and the forces supporting her elevated the woman’s right above the right of the baby to life. She effectively changed the language of the culture to create an illusion that the baby is not a person, not a human being. In doing so the fictional right of privacy, the cornerstone of the pro-abortion movement, was raised above the constitutional right of the child to live as guaranteed by the 14th amendment.

For thirty six years America’s Achilles’ heel has been systemically and systematically poisoned with rhetoric that has allowed for the destruction of her children in the womb, America's only means to grow and remain strong. Destroying America from within, anti-American, anti-black forces have been allowed to spew their arrows of death on woman after woman, and fifty one million babies.

What greater weapon of mass destruction is there than this – the conviction that a child is a problem to be dealt with at the hand of a doctor whose belief system endorses the elimination of a race of people? What greater act of terrorism is there than this – the conviction that the womb is no longer a sanctuary, no longer a place of nurture and protection, but instead,is a nest of terror to the unborn child. Indeed America’s Achilles’ heel is being increasingly poisoned and it has begun to seep into her foundations. I pray we are ready to stop the poisonous flow, lest in the not too distant future, there are no more of us.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

In a meeting recently, one of the speakers noted that the murder of Emmett Till gave face to the Civil Rights movement in the US. So when I saw a copy of a DVD about Emmett, I purchased it. I have watched the Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till five times. There were things in the documentary that I did not know or had not heard. I did not know and had not heard that there were two black men alleged to have held Emmett on the truck while his murderers drove him to the spot where he was killed. It was later reported one of them was seen washing Emmett’s blood out of the truck, claiming it was deer blood. The second man, who claimed he was not there, recounted the events of that ugly night using the same words that the murderers gave in their Look Magazine confession, almost verbatim. He was the only black person noted to have given this version of the events of that night.

Similar expressions of betrayal in the black community continue today. And, depending on who is making the argument, the betrayal can take a number of forms. Just this week several pastors expressed their outrage and concern when a leading Bishop of one of the largest black denominations in America endorsed the President’s health care bill. This Bishop claims a belief in the sanctity of life yet the bill he endorsed has an amendment that expressly calls for public funding of abortion. In response, a pastor of that denomination immediately called the prolife pastors Uncle Toms and Republican brown nosers. This labeling was despite the fact that many of the pastors expressing their concerns were Independents and Democrats.

At a time when the black community is experiencing some of the most horrific problems of our lives, we find the community is fractured and crumbling because of racial and political game playing. A frightening trend has emerged and if it is not checked may mean the complete destruction of a people. That trend is one that forbids criticism of a black Democrat, no matter how detrimental their politics and policies may be. If I were to criticize the President for his policies that I perceive as deadly to the black community, for example, I too would be labeled an Uncle Tom, and in some circles, may be harmed physically.

Over the last forty five years, there has been little if any improvement in the conditions blacks face. In fact, some would argue that since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964things have worsened considerably. Despite having a large contingent of political representatives at every level of local, state and federal government, blacks face daunting numbers when considering healthcare, crime, education, incarceration and employment to name a few. Diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS, hypertension and a host of other diseases run rampant. Blacks are disproportionately represented among homicide victims and offenders according to the Department of Justice (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm). Nationally, over forty seven percent of our black youth drop, out of school (http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/06/18/bia.saving.desmond/index.html) and among black men, the dropout rate soars to over fifty percent (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/national/20blackmen.html?_r=2). Forty eight percent of our teenagers have sexually transmitted diseases (http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2008/04/black-teen-std.html). In the twenty five states with large black populations, 24-77% of those incarcerated are black (http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/blacks_in_prisons.htm). Unemployment for blacks topped 15% in September (http://stats.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). And these numbers are just a tip of the iceberg of all the problems facing the black community in America today.

I attended a church service in 2008 where chiefs, tribal leaders, and ministers from every tribe in Africa that sold blacks into slavery were in attendance. They had come to repent to American blacks for the betrayal their ancestors had perpetrated because of greed, selfishness and jealousy. I wonder if any of us have the fortitude to repent for our betrayals.

In the book of Ezekiel, Chapter 22, verse 30 it says God looked for someone to stand in the gap. But He could not find one. Contrary to the common belief of some about Uncle Tom, he did not betray his people. Uncle Tom stood in the gap for Eliza. He refused to betray her to the evil Simon Legree. Unlike Uncle Tom, the two men in the Emmett Till case were unwilling to die to keep Emmett alive. They betrayed him unto his death and to this day have not been brought to justice. Unlike Uncle Tom, some pastors will celebrate a leader that chooses political rather than moral/Godly stands.

The pastors who spoke up against the endorsement of the President’s bill are indeed Uncle Toms. I applaud their willingness to stand and not betray their people to those are targeting us and who want us dead. I pray there are more who will stand in the gap to reverse the death style the hounds of hell have unleashed against the black community. Indeed, America needs more Uncle Toms – those who will not betray their people for personal, political or social gain. Are you one?

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